Your work is patentable if it meets 5 criteria:
- Patentable Subject Matter: Process, machine, article of manufacture, composition of matter, improvement of any of these.
What is not Patentable: Laws of nature, physical phenomena, Abstract ideas, Literary (dramatic, musical, and artistic works), those inventions that are useful or offensive to the public.
- Utility: What is the purpose of your innovation? Do you, as the inventor, still need to find its function? Before applying for a patent your innovation requires a use, function, or purpose. It can not be determined, or researched more during the patent process. You invention is not required to be made, built or constructed to be patented, but its use must be predetermined.
- Novelty: Is your innovation new and original? Has your idea already been patented, printed, or in use for over a year? If your idea is to be patented it must not be in use for up to a year of the filing. Your innovation should be new and innovative. Initially it should be something that others have not already processed and patented.
- Nonobviousness: Does your innovation take the extra step? Does it take your field one notch further? Your innovation must have a non-obviousness aspect to construct its patent. The innovation must be novel and bring your studies to a new level that it has yet to be reached. Therefore, it must be useful to your field and be an additive to the process of your research or innovation.
- Describable : Do you know the specific way to enact your invention? Can you describe it in detail? The requirement to be able to describe your innovation in complete confidence, with precise detail so that someone in your field could repeat the process, is required of you to achieve a patent.